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"They have been in touch with her," she said. "She is aware of the fact that this is happening."

She will decide in the next two weeks when to return home to Christchurch to hold a memorial for her husband.

"I can't really leave here until such time as they find something," she told the Herald on Sunday a few hours earlier. "I would hate to be there and they find something and be so far away."

The Chinese report said it was not established whether the signal was related to the missing jet, and the Australian government agency coordinating the search would not immediately comment on the report.

Experts cautioned that no confirmation had been made that the signal was linked to the missing plane.

"This could be a variety of things," oceanographer Simon Boxall told CNN, saying the frequency was used by a variety of instruments. "We've had a lot of red herrings, hyperbole on this whole search," said the University of Southampton lecturer. "I'd really like to see this data confirmed. It could be a false signal."

But if this proves what investigators have been searching for, "then the possibility of recovering the plane - or at least the black boxes - goes from being one in a million to almost certain".

The announcement came nearly a month after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, and on the same day the nation's acting transportation minister said three committees were being formed to tackle the disappearance of the flight.

It has been 31 days since Danica Weeks kissed her husband Paul goodbye.

She is now preparing to say a final farewell to the father of their two young sons, who was on the missing flight.

Danica said she would hold a public memorial in Christchurch, and the airline would pay to fly her and sons Lincoln and Jack to the city.

Paul Weeks, 38, an engineer living in Perth, and Aucklander Ximin Wang are among the 239 presumed dead after the flight bound for Beijing from Kuala Lumpur went missing on March 8.

In a cruel twist, the search for the missing plane is happening off the coast of their home.

"Paul always said if anything should happen to him, he would be taken back to Christchurch because that's his home," said Danica.

On Friday, she met retired Australian defence chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the new joint agency co-ordination centre in Perth.

"From talking to them and going to the air base and seeing what was there and what's going on, if it's where they've calculated it to be, they will find it."